“So you’re not sick?”
She gave his hair a playful ruffle. “What I am is worried you’ll be late for your first day of summer camp. Get on in there and have a wonderful day, okay? Come home and tell me all about it.”
“Sure.” His reply sounded anything but sure.
Molly waved Zack off, pulled her car off the road two blocks away, and sobbed.
* * *
It was 9:20 a.m. on a Tuesday and Molly wasn’t here. She was supposed to be here, and she wasn’t. “Double-shot Americano,” he told the young man behind the counter.
“Oh, yeah. You.” As the man began making the drink, Sawyer debated how odd it would look to ask where Molly was. “Molly called in sick at the last minute,” he offered, solving Sawyer’s problem.
“Zack again? I thought school was out,” he said.
“Didn’t say.”
Something was wrong. He could feel it in his gut, as if he’d suddenly gained Molly’s famous intuition. But what could he do about it? He hadn’t earned the right to get involved in her life.
The idiocy of that statement hit him as he waited for his coffee. Get involved? Hadn’t his phone call to Dana been a heap of involved?
Whatever she was going through, she was doing too much of it alone. Zack was doing too much of it alone. The lack of support in her life was making him absurdly worried. The urge to protect her, to care for her, was chasing him, no matter how he tried to outrun it.
That can’t be you, he lectured himself as the espresso machine hissed. She has friends. Lots of them, from the looks of it. What could you possibly add to that?
It did little good. As he got back into his truck, Sawyer dialed Molly’s phone number even as he told himself not to. He grunted as it went to voice mail, and ended the call. He couldn’t bring himself to leave a “Where are you? Call me?” message on account of how meddling that would sound.
He slipped his good-but-not-quite-Molly-perfect coffee in the cupholder and started to drive home. Instead, he somehow ended up steering his truck through the streets of Wander Canyon, searching for Molly’s little blue car. It was probably best that he didn’t find it, because he had no idea of what he’d do if he came across her. The power of his inappropriate worry for her drove him into a panic worthy of Zack’s anxious fits.
You’d keep her safe, wouldn’t You? It was more of a demand than a prayer. As if he had any business making demands of a God he’d ignored for years. Still, God seemed so precious to Molly that Sawyer had to believe Molly was precious to God.
Just as he was heading for home, Sawyer’s cell phone rang. He practically slammed his hand on the button that connected the call in his truck, sure it was Molly.
It wasn’t. It had no reason to be. But it was Dana Preston.
“I got your guy,” she said. “Check your email. It’s not much, but address and cell phone should be enough for what you want.” Her voice held a strong tint of Don’t make me regret doing this.
That timing had to be God-sent, right? Handing him a way to talk to Steve just when Molly might need him most? If he moved the needle even a little bit on Steve’s attention, it would do a world of good for both mother and son. He could be useful here in a way that would make a permanent difference in their lives.
“Thanks, Dana,” he replied. “Much appreciated.”
“Sawyer?” Dana’s mother voice was back.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t do something stupid when the wiser choice is staring you in the face.”
“Another lecture,” he muttered.
“One you need,” she countered. “Are you gonna let me know what happens?”
“Probably not.”
Now it was she who muttered, “I don’t know why I keep holding out hope for you.”
“Now who’s making the stupid choice when the wiser one is staring you in the face?” It had always been fun to throw Dana’s words back at her. Sawyer discovered it had lost its appeal in this case. “I gotta go. I got a phone call to make.”
He did. He wasn’t sure how, or if it even stood a chance of working, but so help him he would give it everything he had to try.
Chapter Sixteen
Molly stormed up the stairs to the little apartment above the barbershop Wednesday and pounded on the door. Loud. He might be asleep at this time of day but she didn’t care. “Sawyer!”
After another minute of calling he came to the door. His groggy expression changed the moment he caught sight of hers. “How did you do that? How could you do that?” she started in immediately. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Not with him. “How could you possibly think it was okay to do that?”
At least he showed her the decency of not asking “Do what?” He knew exactly what she was asking about.
“You want to come in?” he asked, looking down the long stairway as if someone else might be watching below. Wander was always watching, but no one was here now.
“No, I don’t want to come in, I want to know why on earth you felt you could contact Steve? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Why haven’t you ever demanded he pay more attention to Zack? How do you let him get away with disappointing Zack like that?”
Shock at Sawyer’s bold question flashed through her chest. “What business is it of yours?”
“You see it, don’t you? Come on, if even I can see it, surely you see it. It’s killing him that Steve ignores him.”
Molly stormed into the apartment, ready to have it out. She hadn’t been this angry in ages, and she was far too stressed to cut Sawyer any slack for good intentions. “So you think the answer is for you—you—to just haul off and demand attention from Steve?”
“Someone needs to set him straight. I thought I’d try.”
Molly was momentarily struck by the dark, bleak room Sawyer called home. It was so impersonal, so sparse. More empty than a hotel room or even a dormitory. It was a split-second impression, a flash interruption of her anger. “Without asking me. Inappropriate doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’m not even sure it isn’t illegal.”
Sawyer shut the door behind them. “I didn’t break any laws. I had a detective friend find him. I gave him a call and he picked up. I didn’t go down to Denver and stalk him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“You can’t do that!” Molly couldn’t believe she had to explain this to him.
“Well, no, it’s not a perfect solution, but...”
“It’s not a solution at all. I don’t know what you thought you’d accomplish, but all you’ve done is tick Steve off. If there was ever any hope at all that he’d come around, you’ve just killed it.” She forced herself to look directly at him. “You know, I thought you cared about Zack.” She was furious, yes, but she was also disappointed. It felt as if everything was going to pieces.
“Why have you never demanded he get involved?” Sawyer asked again. “Why have you just lain down and accepted how he’s acting? You don’t do that with anyone else.”
She pointed at him. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, mister.” His question infuriated her. “I will not beg for Zack’s father’s affections. I will not force Steve to play at fatherhood only to watch him disappoint Zack time after time.”
Sawyer pointed right back. “He’s already disappointing Zack. It needs to stop. And if I have to tick the guy off by telling him what he should already know, then I’m okay with that. He can hate me instead of you and Zack. I’d do that for him. I’ve got a particular talent for being hated.”
She had promised herself she wasn’t going to bring this up now, but he’d opened the door. “So I’ve heard.”
That stopped Sawyer cold. His whole body stiffened for a moment, then his shoulders sagged. He’d known this was coming, she realized. He’d been waiting for it.
“You know.” The words were a surrender.
The defeat she heard in them still managed to tug at her despite all the anger boiling inside.
“I know what you wouldn’t tell me, yes.” After a second she dared to add, “It would have been so much better coming from you.” Actually, she couldn’t say if that was true. She just knew it hurt that he didn’t trust her enough to tell her. It also made it easier to believe she’d been right in keeping an emotional distance between them. Or at least trying to. She was wounded enough now to recognize she hadn’t succeeded in that at all. It stung badly because she cared deeply. What a whopping mess this whole thing had become.
Sawyer turned to face the window, slumping wearily. “Who told you?” He tossed the words out as if it really didn’t matter how she knew. As if he’d been trying to hold back an avalanche by not telling her. And wasn’t that exactly what he’d been trying to do? Everyone in Wander Canyon—everyone in Colorado, for that matter—knew you couldn’t hold back an avalanche. You could only keep out of its path. Careful as she’d been, she hadn’t managed to stay out of the path of this one. Neither one of them had.
“I asked Tessa to find out. She’s a reporter, so she has sources. You said yourself it was big and horrible, and you weren’t telling me, so I went to her...”
He turned around at that. “Oh, so it’s okay for you to go have your friend hunt down my information but it’s not okay for me to do the same thing?”
“I was scared,” she shot back, hating how her voice pitched up.
“I was worried about Zack,” he countered, then looked at her. “Why on earth were you scared? What have I done to ever make you think I was any kind of threat to you and Zack?”
“You were getting too close!” Molly shouted, regretting the admission instantly. Now it was out. Who was she kidding that he hadn’t felt what was growing between them? It was so huge and strong, how could he not have felt it? “Zack is so fragile,” she backpedaled. “I couldn’t take the chance that you’d hurt him.”
“Him?” Sawyer was challenging her to admit this wasn’t just about Zack.
Molly thought about saying, “Yes, him,” but it seemed useless. Sawyer would see through it.
Even though she’d told herself she wasn’t going to ask him, Molly heard her own voice ask, “Will you tell me what happened?” She sat down at the simple wooden chair that stood against the old Formica table. It and a sad, threadbare recliner were the only pieces of furniture in the room.
“You already know.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
There was a second chair at the table, but Sawyer stood, his back to the wall next to the window. Molly found his stance fitting—his back up against a wall, his body staying out of the light. She watched the pain come over him as he reached back for the memory.
“I was a cop.” There was a world of disappointment behind those words. Tessa had told her he’d been suspended, which meant he technically still was a cop, but she found his use of the past tense telling. She kept silent, letting him unfurl the tragic story at his own speed despite a dozen urgent questions.
“There was a guy. A nasty piece of work, gang leader, multiple arrests, that sort of thing. I’d been after him for weeks. My partner and I caught him breaking and entering. Long story short, my partner ended up still at the scene while I went after the guy in the squad car.”
Sawyer paused for a moment, drawing one hand across his eyes and taking a long breath. “High-speed pursuits are supposed to be a last resort. Especially in a city. Too much possibility for damage. But I knew this guy. I’d watched him. If he got away now, he’d disappear for months. So when he sped up, I followed. I really thought I could nail him, once and for all.”
Regret washed over his features, and the headline Tessa had shown her flashed in front of Molly’s eyes. High-Speed Pursuit Kills Family.
“I made the call,” he said. “I chose to pursue. He was blazing through neighborhoods, and I thought if he turned onto the highway, I could get enough backup to head him off.”
Molly recalled the photo. A police car smashed into a minivan smashed into the corner of a building. A ghastly, mangled image of three cars, splintered glass and tumbling bricks, with police and paramedics everywhere. Sawyer’s hand unconsciously went to the upper part of his left arm, where a savage scar led down from his T-shirt sleeve.
“I made a choice,” Sawyer went on. His voice was cold and monotonous, as if remembering something years before instead of the year she knew it to be. “I could have let him go, but I couldn’t take the chance. I pursued. He kept speeding up, but I kept with him, shouting into the radio to get units in place to head him off. I wasn’t going to let him shake me off, not like he had all the other times. I made that call.”
Sawyer stopped, swallowed hard. He was looking far away, somewhere over her shoulder, somewhere not even in this room. His jaw tightened. “He barely made the corner. Skidded wildly. Nearly missed this minivan. She swerved and I swerved and...” He didn’t finish.
A long, dark silence hung in the room. “A mom, two kids.” His words were barely above a whisper.
The press had not been kind. Tessa had needed to do a fair bit of digging to find his name, so somehow the force had managed to keep his identity out of the stories. There was a particularly wrenching bit of television footage outside the funeral where the woman’s sister was crying. Sobbing, “Murder, that’s what it was, murder,” as she clutched a family photo of a happy mother and two smiling boys.
The gang member Sawyer had been chasing was charged with felony murder since his actions caused the deaths, but no one seemed to care about that. The stories all declared, Cop Makes Wrong Call. Sawyer was right about him being hated.
When his gaze finally returned to her, it was empty. Cold. “You asked me if it was terrible. It was. It is. And now I’m the monster again. It was dumb to think I could outrun it, even for a little while.”
Molly had always been grateful for how the city’s ugly news rarely made it up the mountain into Wander Canyon. Was that a blessing or a curse right now? Would she have ever asked Sawyer to teach Zack had she known?
She stared at him, struggling to connect the vilified Denver policeman with the wounded loner coffee customer she’d known. It explained so much, but there was so much dissonance there. No wonder the music had been strangled out of him. The life had been strangled out of him. Well, not entirely. She realized the desperation she’d picked up on from him was a last-chance struggle to stay human. To not be the monster too many made him out to be.
“The police investigation exonerated you.”
“And you think that matters?” His voice was bitter.
* * *
Sawyer felt the last pieces of himself empty out. Was Molly really optimistic—or foolish—enough to think that his exoneration mattered? That some set of lines in the Denver Police Pursuit Policy made any difference when three innocent lives had been lost?
A hundred pages of police internal affairs reports couldn’t bring that mother and her sons back. It didn’t ease the grief of their family, didn’t erase the images he carried. It may have validated his choice—and even then, only to some people and certainly not to him—but it hadn’t changed the consequences.
Molly rose from the chair to stand straight and defiant. “You should have told me when I asked. And you should never have gone to Steve.”
She was hurt. And angry. Rightfully so, and on his account. Once again his good intentions had met with terrible results. “I should have done a lot of things.”
It used to be that the light and hope he saw in Molly’s eyes made him feel like just maybe things might work out someday. He had let that light seep into him. He’d let it warm him just enough to make him believe he might someday escape his gloom. He’d let himself care for Zack and try to give the kid a way out of his anxieties. To let Zack feel like he’d be okay someday, maybe even someday soon. And
he’d attempted one brave—okay, maybe stupid—act to give Zack the thing he most needed. And what had it done? It had just made everything worse. Everything he had done had made things worse.
Now the total lack of light and hope he saw in Molly’s eyes confirmed what he’d known all along—some people didn’t get light and hope. Some people were destined for lousy. His biggest mistake was letting Molly start to convince him otherwise. To let himself care.
He was totally empty now, just a shell of something that used to be him. He realized, with the last shred of feeling he had left, that he was also heartbroken. That was so sad he almost laughed. How cruel was it to discover you still had a heart by realizing it had been crushed to pieces?
“I can be gone by the weekend. Maybe sooner.” Honestly, Sawyer couldn’t really think of anything stopping him from walking away right now.
She glared at him. “What?”
“Leaving. I can be gone. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Me and my trail of disaster far away from you and Zack?”
Molly planted her hands on her hips. “You think that’s the answer here? Just walking away from the mess because it’s messy? Yanking yourself out of Zack’s life? Don’t you think he’s had enough of that already?”
He couldn’t stay. He’d always known he couldn’t stay.
She took a step toward him, and Sawyer felt his back flatten up against the wall. “Will you give me the courtesy of an honest answer if I ask you something?”
The woman had a talent for asking impossible questions. Sawyer looked at the floor, stuffed his hands in his pockets and mumbled, “I’ll try.”
She held her silence until he looked back up at her. Molly was invasive—there wasn’t another word for her. She wouldn’t stay distant or polite or casual or uninvolved. She’d forced herself into his life, almost against his will. If he allowed himself to think about how grateful he was for that, for even a moment, his heart would break all the way into nothing. Maybe it had already.
A Mother's Strength Page 14
